peteg's blog

Shoham, Leyton-Brown: Multiagent Systems: Algorithmic, Game-Theoretic, and Logical Foundations

/cs | Link

This book looks fantastic. Social choice, formal epistemics, game theory, so on and so forth. I really need a few spare lives right now.

What makes it even more fantastic is that Cambridge University Press has allowed them to distribute it as a free eBook too, making them surely the most progressive academic publisher.

/noise/beach/2008-2009 | Link

Midday snorkel with Rob at Little Bay. We had the beach to ourselves, pretty much, and the fish seemed to be enjoying the cooler and quite calm waters. Visibility was excellent and there was plenty to see. The water was quite pleasant in a spring suit, and the day bright and sunny, albeit a bit windy. Surprisingly there was no chill in the wind.

Philip K. Dick: Vulcan's Hammer

/noise/books | Link

Prototype for the plot of Terminator and other technodystopic iconographics. Tries to out-psych 1984, combining the classics (Vulcan's hammer? As in, those flying things were forging something?) with some shamelessly artless workmanship. It's all tediously first order; if two "sentient", mechanised intelligences are waging a proxy war on each other, wouldn't you expect the smarter one to figure out a robust winning strategy?

It seems pointless to read Dick now; his ideas have either been absorbed into the popular culture or are just dross, and I can't always tell. Some may argue that he got there first, but others have polished the product and gone deeper.